Foreign banks saw a slight rise in the volume of loans granted to Romanian-based non-bank companies, by 0.6%, to 24.6 billion dollars, according to data from the Bank for International Settlements. Calculated in euros, the rise would have been considerably higher due to the depreciation of the dollar against the euro in the first quarter of the year. This means the March volume amounts to 18.5 billion euros, almost one billion euros more than that reached in December last year. However, overall foreign loans going to Romania, as reported by banks included in the BIS study, fell slightly in the first three months of the year, from 59.5 to 55.7 billion dollars. This volume includes, alongside funding granted to non-bank companies, loans granted to financial institutions. Foreign banks very slightly reduced their overall exposure to Romania (which also includes the balances of payments of Romanian-based banks with foreign shareholders) in the first three months of the year, with the overall amount down from a sum equivalent to 87 billion euros in December last year to 86.2 billion euros at the end of March. "Exposure to Romania reached a certain level, which will probably be preserved in the wake of the Brussels and Vienna agreements. We cannot hope for an increase, but banks will probably keep their word and preserve the exposure," comments Ionut Dumitru, chief economist of Raiffeisen Bank.